The Georgian president, Salome Zourabichvili, has called the country’s government illegitimate and said she would not leave office when her term ends next month, defying the prime minister as he accused pro-EU opposition forces of plotting revolution.

The South Caucasus country was thrown into crisis on Thursday when the prime minister of the Georgian Dream party, Irakli Kobakhidze, said it was halting EU accession talks for the next four years over what it called “blackmail” of Georgia by the bloc, abruptly reversing a long-standing national goal.

EU membership is overwhelmingly popular in Georgia, which has the aim of joining the bloc enshrined in its constitution, and the sudden freezing of accession talks has triggered large protests in the mountainous country of 3.7 million people.

In an address on Saturday, Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of Georgian Dream whose powers are mostly ceremonial, said parliament had no right to elect her successor when her term ends in December, and that she would stay in post.

Zourabichvili and other government critics said a 26 October election, in which Georgian Dream won almost 54% of the vote, was rigged, and that the parliament it elected is illegitimate.

“There is no legitimate parliament and, therefore, an illegitimate parliament cannot elect a new president. Thus, no inauguration can take place, and my mandate continues until a legitimately elected parliament is formed,” she said.

Earlier, Kobakhidze accused opponents of the halt to EU accession of plotting a revolution, along the lines of Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan protest, which ousted a pro-Russian president.

“Some people want a repeat of that scenario in Georgia. But there will be no Maidan in Georgia,” Kobakhidze said.

The country’s interior ministry said on Saturday it had detained 107 people in the capital, Tbilisi, overnight during a protest in which demonstrators built barricades along the central Rustaveli Avenue and hurled fireworks at riot police, who used water cannon and teargas to disperse them.

Georgia’s domestic intelligence agency, the state security service, said “specific political parties” were attempting to “overthrow the government by force”.

Many thousands of protesters were gathering late on Saturday in Tbilisi, building barricades outside parliament where there was a large presence of riot police. Local media reported protests in towns and cities throughout the country.

Hundreds of employees at Georgia’s foreign, defence, justice and education ministries, and at the central bank, have signed open letters condemning the decision to freeze EU accession talks.

Major businesses, including the London-listed banks TBC Bank and Bank of Georgia stated their support for EU accession, while Georgia’s most senior diplomats in Italy and the Netherlands resigned in protest on Saturday, local media reported.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, a star of Georgia’s national football team, spoke out in favour of the protesters.

“My country hurts, my people hurt – it’s painful and emotional to watch the videos that are circulating, stop the violence and aggression! Georgia deserves Europe today more than ever!” Kvaratskhelia wrote on Facebook on Saturday.

Standing outside the parliament building in the capital, where the flags of the EU and Georgia hang side by side, protester Tina Kupreishvili said she wanted Georgia to uphold its constitutional commitment to joining the EU.

“The people of Georgia are trying to protect their constitution, trying to protect their country and the state, and they are trying to tell our government that rule of law means everything,” she told Reuters.

The halt to EU accession caps months of deteriorating relations between Georgian Dream, which has faced allegations of authoritarian and pro-Russian tendencies, and the west.

The party is dominated by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire ex-prime minister who adopted increasingly anti-western positions in the run-up to the October election.

Both the ruling party and Georgia’s electoral commission say the poll was free and fair. Western countries have called for an investigation into alleged violations.

The EU had already said Georgia’s application was stalled owing to laws against “foreign agents” and LGBTQ+ rights that it has described as draconian and pro-Russian.

Meanwhile, Georgian Dream has started to build ties with neighbouring Russia, from which Georgia gained independence in 1991.

The two countries have no diplomatic ties since a brief war over a Moscow-backed rebel region in 2008 but restored direct flights in 2023, while Moscow lifted visa restrictions on Georgian nationals earlier this year.

“Massive amounts” of plastic contamination is getting into food and garden waste through user error and misleading “biodegradable” labelling, waste industry experts have warned.

Leading figures at some of Australia’s largest waste companies are calling for the government to standardise certification of compostable products, as many bin liners, compostable coffee cups and other material labelled “compostable” or “biodegradable” do not break down into organic matter.

The warnings come as states across the country are introducing food and organic waste collection programs in households in an attempt to halve the amount of food waste that ends up in landfill by 2030. In NSW, councils will be required to collect food and organic waste from all households by 2030.

“[There is a] massive amount of plastic that ends up in Fogo [food organics and garden organics] bins … [and] non-biodegradable items that wrongly claim to be compostable,” said Richard Kirkman, CEO and managing director of Veolia ANZ.

“These materials aren’t organic and don’t naturally decompose into the ground. Instead, they just contaminate what would otherwise be high-quality compost from genuine Fogo.” Much of the food and garden waste processed in Australia’s waste sector is turned into compost to be used in agriculture.

Confusion among consumers about the labelling of different products complicated the matter, said Kirkman. According to the Australian Standards for commercial composting, “compostable” products must disintegrate after 12 weeks and completely biodegrade after six months in a dedicated composting facility.

“Biodegradable” products are able to break down into elements found in nature, but not in a specified timeframe, which means the biodegradation process could take years.

“Not all liners on the market meet these standards,” said Kirkman. “Australians want to do the right thing, but it is virtually impossible to tell which caddy liners should be used. In fact, some liners remain fully intact after 16 weeks of accelerated composting and we have no option but to remove them by hand.”

Kirkman called the “contamination caused by ‘compostable’ bags and kitchen liners” used in Fogo bins “a nightmare for the industry”.

Ash Turner, state manager for resource recovery at Cleanaway, says that many of the kitchen liners sold at the supermarket are not compostable and will break down into microplastics that are then ploughed into the soil along with the compost.

“So they’ll say ‘biodegradable compost liner’ … but they’re not necessarily biodegradable,” he says. They do break down, he says, but adds: “Do they compost and break down into an organic? No, they don’t.”

Research by Veolia from earlier this year found that 72% of those surveyed thought compostable single-use coffee cups could be recycled in the yellow bin and 58% thought biodegradable plastic bags could be recycled, when Veolia advises that both items should only be placed in red bins and should end up in landfill.

On top of this, there were challenges around misleading labelling.

In 2023, researchers from the Institute for Sustainable Futures analysed 26 bioplastic products sold in Australia and produced by 14 companies, including plastic bags, coffee pods, postage backs and balloons.

The research found that nearly one-third of sustainability claims about the products were potentially misleading, including that not all that claimed to be compostable were certified to the Australian Standards.

Others used the term “biodegradable” for products that are not compostable and may take many years to biodegrade.

Both Kirkman and Turner have said they would like to see the Environment Protection Agency take steps to make it easier for consumers to buy bags they can be confident will compost, and enable those working in the plants to pull non-compostable bags out of the processing lines.

“We’re working with the EPA,” said Turner. “We’ve asked … that compostable bags be certified in some ridiculous colour … so if you want to make a compostable bag, you have to get certified and you’ve got to make it that colour, so either the guys on the line or our optical sorting equipment can be sure [it is compostable] and everything else comes out.”

Kirkman said: “If Australia was to go down the route of a single, easily identifiable caddy liner, that was certified, council-issued and built to a single national standard, that would be world-beating.”

But Gayle Sloan, CEO of Waste Management Resource Recovery Australia, goes further, advocating for no bin liners at all, saying the simplest solution is to have people put food waste into their kitchen caddy and take that straight to their kerbside bin each day.

“Bags complicate it,” she said. “It’s complicated for the consumer because you’re not sure if the bag is what it says it is … We’re creating waste with the liner. It’s one less piece of material that we have to use.”

The World Beekeeping Awards will not award a prize for honey next year after warnings of widespread fraud in the global supply chain.

Apimondia, the International Federation of Beekeepers’ Associations, says it will showcase honey from around the world at its congress in Denmark, but for the first time make no awards for the product.

The decision came as beekeepers and importers face a mounting crisis over the scale of fraud, with warnings that genuine products are bulked out with cheaper sugar syrup. Some common tests to detect fraud can easily be defeated, and beekeepers say there has been a failure by food watchdogs and the industry to combat the fraudsters.

Apimondia said in a statement: “We will celebrate honey in many ways at the congress, but honey will no longer be a category, and thus no honey judging, in the World Beekeeping Awards. This change to remove honey as a category was necessitated by the inability to have honey fully tested for adulteration.”

The awards are typically held every two years at the congress, attended by thousands of beekeepers, scientists and industry representatives. Dozens of entries in recent honey competitions have been rejected because adulteration was suspected.

About 45% of honeys were rejected at the awards in Montreal in 2019 for a variety of reasons, including suspected adulteration. At the Istanbul congress in 2022, 39 out of 145 honeys were withdrawn for suspected adulteration. The awards also has other categories, which will still be judged at next year’s competition, including beeswax, mead, innovation and publications.

Jeff Pettis, the federation’s president, says the first laboratory tests for honey were introduced for the 2019 awards. Honeys which were excluded were replaced with a card stating: “This exhibit has failed laboratory analysis and cannot be judged further.”

There were logistical challenges for the competition in authenticating entries and in border controls, he said. The Copenhagen congress in September 2025 would highlight the damage being done to beekeepers around the world by fraud.

He said: “We are continuing to fight for improvements to the testing. We want the public to know that local honey is much less likely to be adulterated. The beekeepers get their name on it and can stand behind it.”

He said there was widespread adulteration in cheaper commercial honeys. The fraud can occur at any point of the supply chain, with many importers and retailers unwittingly trading in fake honey.

An EU investigation published last year found 46% of imported sampled products were suspected to be fraudulent, including all 10 from the UK. Samples used in October by the UK branch of the Honey Authenticity Network for a novel form of DNA testing found that 24 out of 25 jars from big UK retailers were suspicious.

China is the world’s biggest producer of honey, but experts say it can be fraudulently blended with cheaper sugar syrup. The UK is the world’s biggest importer of Chinese honey, with more than 39,000 tons imported last year.

Bernhard Heuvel, president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association, said there was overwhelming evidence of fraud in the supply chain. “It’s just unbelievable if the world organisation for all beekeepers cannot guarantee the authenticity of honey. The scale of this fraud is huge.”

Dale Gibson, co-founder of Bermondsey Street Bees, which has hives in and around London, said the UK should require importers to label the country of origin on all honey, including blends. He said: “We have to give consumers information at the point of sale that they can act on.”

Importers in the UK have rejected as unreliable the hundreds of tests commissioned by campaigners and investigators on British-sold honey that suggested adulteration. Regulators in the UK have not published detailed results of official tests, but rejected claims of significant fraud.

An assessment of food crime published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in September said it was “unlikely that adulterated honey is broadly present on the UK market”, but recognised the “complexities” in making the judgment.

Enid Brown, director of the World Beekeeping Awards, said: “The UK government needs to wake up to this problem of adulteration of imported honey. Until the government starts official tests on honey and publishing the results, we are never going to win.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: “We take any type of food fraud very seriously. There is no place for adulterated honey which undermines consumer confidence and disadvantages responsible businesses acting within the law.

“We work closely with enforcement authorities to ensure that honey sold in the UK is not subject to adulteration, meets our high standards, and maintains a level playing field between honey producers.”

Andrew Quinn, head of the FSA’s National Food Crime Unit, said: “We are working closely with Defra and other government colleagues to develop conclusive testing that will be able to establish the authenticity of honey on sale.”

New research aimed at identifying which US neighborhoods face increased exposure to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” found those living near “superfund” sites and other major industrial polluters, or in areas with limited access to fresh food, generally have higher levels of the dangerous compounds in their blood.

The study looked at hundreds of people living in southern California and found those who do not live within a half mile of a grocery store have 14% higher levels of PFOA and PFOS – two common PFAS compounds – in their blood than those who do.

Meanwhile, those who live within three miles of a superfund site – a location contaminated with hazardous substances – have up to 107% higher levels of some compounds, and people who live near a facility known to use PFAS showed significantly higher blood levels.

The findings highlight how the built environment in low-income neighborhoods presents multiple PFAS exposure routes, said Sherlock Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern California. The solutions are not easy, he added.

“It’s a difficult question because you can’t tell people to just move or to buy air filters and water filters and eat healthy food,” Li said. “We’re hoping the government will see the analysis and take action … because it’s more cost effective to reduce pollution at the source.”

PFAS are a class of about 15,000 compounds typically used to make products that resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and accumulate, and are linked to cancer, kidney disease, liver problems, immune disorders, birth defects and other serious health problems.

The study also found people who live in neighborhoods with water contaminated with PFAS have 70% higher blood levels of PFOS and PFOA, though there was no correlation among some other compounds.

Researchers say diet is likely a contributing factor to the higher levels in neighborhoods with limited fresh food access. Previous research has found processed and fast foods that are more accessible in these neighborhoods generally contain higher levels of PFAS – the chemicals are commonly added to resist moisture and grease in fast food wrappers and carryout containers. Conversely, eating a diet with more fresh foods may help lower PFAS blood levels.

Though the Food and Drug Administration announced last year that PFAS compounds were no longer approved for use in paper food packaging produced in the US, the chemicals could be on imported wrappers, or in plastic containers.

Packaging is among the “key sources” of elevated levels in the neighborhoods, Li said, but the solution is in part structural – improving access to fresh foods with more grocery stores or community gardens will also have a benefit of lowering PFAS levels.

Some study participants lived near several former Air Force bases and a metal plating facility that are now superfund sites contaminated with PFAS.

The link between groundwater at the site and drinking water was weak, and the authors hypothesize that the higher PFAS blood levels around superfund sites and industrial facilities that use the chemicals largely stems from air pollution. PFAS can be volatile, meaning it lifts into the air from a polluted area, or can get on dust, then is breathed in or ingested.

“We need to be more holistic to reduce water, food, soil air exposure – all of them,” Li said.

Sniffer dogs are usually found looking for contraband at airports and train stations, but the UK government is now dispatching trained hounds to find forest-harming pests.

A dog has been used for the first time in the UK to successfully identify tree disease. Researchers from Forest Research used a trained spanador – a cocker spaniel labrador cross – to find the tree pathogen Phytophthora ramorum.

Six-year-old Ivor the dog achieved a 89% successful first-time detection rate of the pest. This is an important finding as the disease is a menace to UK forests; spread by rain, the fungal-like organism causes the death of a wide range of trees and shrubs and has led to thousands of hectares of felling around the UK.

Dr Heather Dun, a pathologist at Forest Research, said: “The results from the trials have been incredibly encouraging, with a first-time 89% detection rate highlighting the huge potential of dogs in our fight against pests and diseases.”

“Biosecurity is incredibly important and detection dogs like Ivor are an exciting new method for helping to protect our trees.”

Researchers trained Ivor in scent recognition so he could pick up the smell of the pathogen. In the first round he successfully identified Phytophthora ramorum in soil, plant material and sterile distilled water. He was then trained to distinguish Phytophthora ramorum from the scent of other Phytophthora species often found in the same environments.

Sniffer dogs have been used previously to hunt for insects. In 2012, a team of detection dogs from the Austrian plant health inspectorate were used to track down the Asian longhorn beetle pest during an outbreak in Paddock Wood, Kent.

Forest Research will now explore using detection dogs to combat other pests and diseases as there have been a number of successful trials. They plan to trial dogs to seek out the eight-toothed spruce bark beetle.

The UK’s chief plant health officer, Prof Nicola Spence, said: “This groundbreaking research using detection dogs to identify Phytophthora ramorum, alongside other innovative approaches to tackle pests and diseases, will play a key role in maintaining biosecurity to meet the vision set out in our world-leading plant biosecurity strategy.”

It’s one damned thing after another. As Keir Starmer is discovering, government, like life, can feel like a fusillade of events, each coming faster than the one before. If it’s not a cabinet minister resigning over a past fraud conviction, it’s MPs voting for assisted dying – and that’s just in one day. Through that blizzard of news, it can be hard to make out the lasting changes in the landscape – even those that have profound implications for our place in the world.

The November 2024 event that will have the most enduring global impact is the election of Donald Trump. There are some in the higher reaches of the UK government who are surprisingly relaxed about that fact, reassuring themselves that, in effect, we got through it once, we’ll get through it again. Yes, they admit, Trump has nominated some crazy people to lead in areas crucial to the UK-US relationship, such as defence and intelligence, but don’t worry, officials in London will do what they did last time: work with like-minded counterparts in the Washington bureaucracy to bypass the Trump loyalists at the top.

Whether that’s complacency or naivety, it’s a mistake. This is not like last time. As Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, put it to me: “Trump is different and the world is different.” During his first term, Trump was hemmed in by the establishment types he had appointed to key jobs. Now he will be unbound. Back then, there was no war in Europe, China was relatively cooperative and Britain was still in the EU. That’s all changed now.

Consider what Trumpism, if implemented, means for the world. It would dismantle the post-1945 order, underpinned for eight decades by the US. In that period, the US acted as both guarantor for a system of global trade and defensive umbrella for the western alliance, with Britain and Europe the obvious beneficiaries. Playing that role came at a cost for the US, but successive presidents believed it was worth it, because a stable world was one in which the US could prosper.

Trump marks a radical break from that thinking. He believes those previous US presidents were suckers, ripped off by allies taking a free ride at US expense. He denies the US has any greater responsibilities than any other country: it should sacrifice nothing, looking out instead solely for itself. He’s happy for the US to be No 1 in the world, but not the world’s leader. The two are different. Like the slogan says: it’s “America first”.

For China, Russia, the Gulf states, Brazil and others there is some relief at that: they relish a future without a scolding Washington sticking its nose into their business. But for Europe, including Britain, it’s a disaster. In terms of both defence and the economy, our societies are predicated on a US-led world that will soon no longer exist.

The impact will be felt most sharply in Ukraine, which is weeks away from seeing US support fall away. Leonard fears a “Yalta-type settlement sealed by Trump and Vladimir Putin over the heads of European countries”, one that will reward Putin’s aggression and leave him emboldened. That leaves more than the likes of Moldova and the Baltic states feeling vulnerable. As the Guardian reported today, “Germany is developing an app to help people locate the nearest bunker in the event of attack. Sweden is distributing a 32-page pamphlet titled If Crisis or War Comes. Half a million Finns have already downloaded an emergency preparedness guide.” Berlin is taking steps to get the German public kriegstüchtig: war-capable.

On the continent, it’s become an urgent question: can Europe defend itself either without America or, at best, with less America? European defence spending is up and there is talk of shifting the industrial base, repurposing factories, to allow for a fast and massive, Europe-wide programme of rearmament. Our nearest neighbours understand that if the US president no longer believes in the core Nato principle of mutual defence – one for all and all for one – then, at the very least, Nato’s US pillar is gone. If Nato is to survive, the EU pillar will have to bear much of the weight alone.

It’s not clear that this penny has quite dropped in London. And remember there is a double threat here. Trump also plans to protect US domestic industry by slapping tariffs on imports from the rest of the world. China is likely to be hardest hit, with a 60% charge, but Trump wants a “universal” tariff of up to 20% on all goods coming into the US – including from Britain. For a trading nation such as the UK, that spells calamity.

What, then, can be done? On defence, Britain can vow to spend more and increase military cooperation with European allies. Fine, as far as it goes. But in the face of a trade war, Britain alone would be all but impotent against the might of the US. There is only one nearby market that is of comparable heft to the US, whose threats to retaliate against US tariffs would have a deterrent effect, a body, incidentally, that happens to be a virtuoso in the realm of trade and trade disputes. I am speaking of course of the European Union.

What’s more, these two spheres, military and economic, are no longer as distinct as they once were. When states confront each other, they no longer do it solely through bombs and bullets. Everything else gets weaponised too, whether it’s the financial system through sanctions, the supply of energy or food or technology. Witness Russia’s war against Ukraine. As it happens, these are all areas where the EU’s particular brand of cooperation can help. So when Russia moved to choke off the gas supply to individual European countries, the EU was able to step in and connect what were previously separate energy grids, thereby thwarting that threat.

The point is, the landscape of 2016 – that fateful year – no longer exists. Plenty of Brexiters believed, in good faith, that a buccaneering, free-trading Britain could thrive in a world of open borders. But that world has gone now, replaced by one of war, barriers and Darwinian competition. Whatever case you could make for Britain being out of the EU in the Obama era of 2016 makes no sense now.

I don’t expect Starmer to announce a plan to rejoin the EU tomorrow. But it’s time for outriders to start riding out. Labour MPs, perhaps the odd minister, can begin to make the case that is becoming increasingly obvious to many millions of Britons. The polls are saying it, the governor of the Bank of England is saying it. And when immigration levels are four times higher now than when we were in the EU, the issue that served as the Brexiters’ trump card lies in shreds. One by one, the premises of Britain’s 2016 decision are crumbling.

I understand the political calculus that made Labour believe Brexit was an issue best avoided. But the reality around us is changing and politicians, governments especially, have to adapt to it. In the age of Trump, when the US is no longer the predictable guarantor it once was, Britain cannot thrive alone and in the cold. It’s not ideology or idealism, but hard-headed, practical common sense to say our place is in Europe – and to say so now.